99 Miles
by jenbachand
Summary: Tell me about where you grew up. A look into the lives of our favorite couple. My answer to the Lyric Wheel Challenge. This is for dreamsofhim who wrote me angst. Based on the lyrics from Art Garfunkel's 99 Miles From L.A. GrissomSara


99 Miles  
Title: 99 Miles  
Author: jenbachand  
Pairing: GSR   
Rating: General  
Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, just playing with them a bit.  
Spoilers: None Really  
A/N: My answer to the Lyric Wheel Challenge. This is for dreamsofhim who wrote me angst. Thanks to cuttingrmflr for all the help getting this finished. :)

CSICSICSI

"Tell me about where you grew up."

Sara is curled up at his side. They've spent the evening waking up languorously, making love twice in the span of a couple hours. They have a couple hours until work, and after the first cold snap yesterday, neither is eager to leave the warmth of their bed.

"I guess I grew up in my mother's house. Her deafness and my biological father leaving early made for a very grown up four year-old." He can feel her smile against his chest, and knows he's given her the answer she was looking for. For all the years she is younger than him, her soul is so old it makes his look pre-pubescent.

"When she met my dad things were better. There were more than a couple of people who could talk to my mom, as he had a deaf sister and the whole new family knew how to sign. I got to be a kid again. I learned to play baseball and discovered nature."

"And bugs." There's a smile in her voice that mirrors the one on his face.

"And bugs," Grissom says as he stretches a bit. "With him being a botanist, we spent a lot of time around the greenhouse. The bugs were very fascinating."

He tugs her up in the bed so he can see her face when he asks, "tell me about where Sara Sidle grew up."

She has started talking about her family more in the time they've been together. Bits and pieces he squirrels away for analysis of what makes the woman he loves tick. He's never pushed, and he knows she appreciates, but there are things he'd like to know. Her brow is wrinkled, and he starts to apologize when she starts talking.

"I guess I grew up in the library. When I was younger, and things weren't so bad, it was a way to stay out of my parents' hair while they ran the B&B. When things were bad when I was older, it was a way to avoid the yelling or name calling. Books didn't yell or hurt people, and the librarians were always glad to have a polite kid in who would shelve her own books." Her smile is sad and Grissom kisses her brow and wraps her in a hug.

"I've been thinking of taking some time off to finish up mom's estate. The house is empty aside from photo albums & a few pieces of furniture, and I've gotten a couple offers on it. Want to come see where I grew up?" He knows the pictures were the right bait to dangle in front of her when she sits up.

"I could see these baby blues when they were actually a baby," she asks while running her fingers along the top of his eyelids.

He snags her hand and places a kiss across her knuckles. "You know they're all in black & white, so you can't really see the blue."

Her giggles as he rolls her over and starts to kiss her let him know a trip to California is a go.

"I was wondering if you'd like to see where I grew up."

She's standing in the door to their bedroom, in the pose he's seen a thousand times at work. She's nervous. This is big, phenomenally big, for her to offer without a prompt from him. He stands up and crosses the room to her.

"Sure, did you want to head there first and then go to my mom's?"

"Um, yeah. That'd be great. And, uh, is it ok if we drive? That way at least I'll have two things that are familiar. You know you and the car."

He pulls her close. He would take the whole bedroom with them if it made her feel safe enough to open up. He will at least make sure their pillows and her favorite throw get tossed in the backseat.

The place that Sara resided at when she was a child is lurid and bright, and Gil Grissom can't imagine this place ever hosting the atrocities he knows it did. Of course he's seen some of the most horrific crimes take place in some of the most serene locations. The new owners bought the place a couple years ago, according to Sara, and have turned it into a welcoming, if eccentric, place to stay. They are not staying there, that is more than he thinks either of them could handle.

They do take the owners up on a tour of the place. The couple was working in the yard when Sara and Grissom walked up the drive. He's glad that most Bed & Breakfasts don't allow guests in the kitchen, where the death of Sara's childhood occurred along with the death of her father. Sara later tells him that the rooms she and her brother had lived in have been converted to guest rooms as well. The new owners dubbed that the seashell room, and decorated it with various shells and beach paintings. It's the only guest room without a view.

Sara also takes him to the library. There isn't really much in the town besides a few city buildings, a couple shops and a restaurant. They eat lunch in the small diner. No one in the whole town has recognized Sara, or if they have they haven't said anything to her. She tells him about the time she spent in foster care, her time in school, and her last foster mom who encouraged her to become an emancipated teen so she could go away to college after her perfect SAT scores came in. He listens quietly and gives her strength. Confronting demons is hard work, and at the end of the day she falls asleep in the car.

They are staying down the coast. It's a place that comes highly recommended from one of his former co-workers from Los Angeles that he's kept in touch with. They're spending a couple days in Morro Bay. He's hoping to relax at a place that sports beautiful views and quiet. There are two sisters who run the place, vibrant and cheerful, and never bothersome. They know why the guests come to their little corner of the world, and they respect the down time their boarders are looking for. He gets into a lively discussion over breakfast one morning about small town police departments and gangs. Sara just smiles down at her homemade waffles and squeezes his hand under the table.

The two days they spend watching the fog roll in, the ocean beating up the cliffs, and the clouds drift by, are some of the most relaxing he's spent in a long time. Sara spends most of the two days curled in the hammock on the front porch, a warm throw across her body and a fiction novel taken from the cottage bookshelves in her hand. He was worried at first, but every time he brings her something warm to drink she smiles at him and invites him to cuddle with her. He does a few times, and one time she falls asleep, her head on his chest, his hand in her hair.

The drive to L.A. is like Spring. He thinks Sara is finally emerging from her Winter. She is like a shoot growing up from the ground, fresh and strong, and blossoming before his eyes.

The radio is playing low and Sara is driving. She turns the volume up and he hears a haunting melody that would never get airtime in Las Vegas, but on this winding stretch of the coastal highway it makes sense.

"I always thought this was written for a love lost. It seems if he's singing to the dead," Sara says without taking her eyes off the road.

Gil Grissom had never given much thought to Art Garfunkel's version of the song, or any of the subsequent versions, but listening to the lyrics he can see where someone might think that.

"I think he must have someone very special at home, if he's keeping track of the miles. I know the few miles from the lab to the house seem to take forever when you're not with me."

She doesn't turn to face him, but the sun shining in through his window has nothing on her smile.

CSICSICSI

Keeping my eyes on the road, I see you.  
Keeping my hands on the wheel, I hold you.  
99 Miles From L.A., I kiss you, I miss you, please be there.  
Passing the white sandy beach, we're sailing.  
Turning the radio on, we're dancing.  
99 Miles From L.A., I want you, I need you, please be there.  
The windshield is covered with rain, I'm cryin'.  
Pressing my foot on the gas, I'm flyin'.  
Counting the telephone poles, I phone you.  
Reading the signs on the road, I write you.  
99 Miles From L.A., we're laughing, we're loving, please be there.  
Counting the telephone poles, I phone you.  
Reading the signs on the road, I write you.  
99 Miles From L.A., we're laughing, we're loving, please be there.


End file.
